Dead Women, Dead Children

Dead Women, Dead Children

Thousands of civilian women and children have been slain by, oops, Christians. Are any leaders willing to acknowledge that?

Here is an interesting item that appeared recently in the Toronto Star (Canada).

by Calvin White

Now that imams in Britain and Canada are standing up and publicly condemning terrorist acts as anti-Muslim and against the teachings in the Qur’an, I wonder if pressure might be put on Christian leaders to take a similar stand.

Contrary to what some might like to insist, Christianity is not the religion of “an eye for an eye” but it is the religion of Jesus, who refined those earlier directions and distilled the ten commandments into two. One was to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Pretty definitive isn’t it? As is the edict of turning the other cheek.

Jesus expected to be betrayed. He expected to be arrested by the authorities. There was no exhortations to prepare for battle. There was no bloody attempt to stop the proceedings.

Even as Jesus was brutalized while carrying his own crucifixion cross and being nailed onto the timbers, there was no violent counterforce from his disciples. Not even an outcry.

No matter where one reads in the accounts of Jesus, the only conclusion one can come to is that Jesus was about love.

So where are the Christian leaders when it comes to violent actions by our Western leaders? Where are the televangelists, who every Sunday take over the airwaves to trumpet the message of Jesus, when it comes to taking on bunker busting bombs and mass carnage?

Where are they when it comes to the death penalty prevalent in the majority of American states?

When President George Bush insists that billions of dollars need to continue flowing to the war effort in Iraq which leads to more American body bags and Iraqi graves, why is there no outcry? Why don’t the Christian leaders stand up and challenge those decisions, and passionately assert that Jesus would have sought another way of solving the problems?

In this time when Christianity is on the rise all over America, when there is a growing surge in extolling Christian values, why is it that when the born-again Bush says it’s better to fight “them” over there than on American soil, no concerted group of leaders stands up and yells that he’s got it wrong?

Like Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also born again.

Yet, their combined leadership has been responsible for excruciating death and injury to innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.

They both claim a righteousness in their policies of destruction. They were even counseled by their secular allies not to resort to the carnage. Where was the equal pressure from the Christian leadership?

Interesting, isn’t it, that Muslim fanatics use the idea of holy jihad and rewards in paradise to recruit their dupes into terrible acts of destruction, and in Christian circles there is the solemn assembling for prayer and seeking of blessings for the troops and leaders in their mission of war.

Interesting, isn’t it, that polling clearly indicates the Christian right in America is emphatically against bad language on TV and in the movies, horrified by Janet Jackson’s bare nipple — but drawn with considerable relish to violence in the same media.

The additional galling irony of Jesus being emblazoned on the foreheads of those in command of the sharpest swords is that Jesus was also all about intelligence. He was all about deeper understanding, about using insight and keenness of mind to solve problems. Think of how the Pharisees tried to trick him by holding up different sections of the law to trip him up.

His disciples picking corn, for instance, and thus working, on the Sabbath. Jesus answered that the Sabbath was for man and not the other way around. There was the adulteress brought before him to be stoned; he responded that any without sin might cast the first stone.

What kind of insight have Bush and Blair employed? What intelligence, what deeper understanding is demonstrated by the tactic of blast and shoot with as much technologically advanced weaponry as is available?

What compassion, what recognition of common humanity is shown when the biggest concern is how to pad the soldiers with as much body Kevlar and the humvees with as much armour as possible so they can kill all the easier without casualties  and thus retain the support of the home front.

How do our current religious leaders think Jesus would react to the concept of collateral damage?

Calvin White is a freelance commentator and poet who lives in British Columbia.

We are Hanno Beck, Lindy Davies, Fred Foldvary, Mike O'Mara, Jeff Smith, and assorted volunteers, all dedicated to bringing you the news and views that make a difference in our species struggle to win justice, prosperity, and eco-librium.

The Christian Right strays as far from the teachings and spirit of Jesus, as suicide bombers stray from the teachings and spirit of Islam. Too many preachers of both religions pervert and ignore the essential universalism at the core of Jesus’ message, and at the core of Mohammed’s message to humankind. Purported “men of God” spewing rants of hatred and division which cause untold suffering and destruction, are a travesty of the faiths they profess. The fact that they are able to attract many followers isn’t suprising; there is always a market for bigotry and xenophobia.

But neither is it excusable. Why are men of good faith not standing up as one, to refute these blatent errors and cruel misdirections, with all the passion they have? Mainstream Christians and mainstream Muslims alike are accountable for allowing false and dangerous teachings to be broadcast unchallenged, uncorrected. If people were truly following Jesus, and Mohammed repectively, there would be no conflict, no hatred, no discord, no violence between them; none! Where are the religious leaders with enough courage and faith to proclaim this TRUTH loudly, publicly, emphatically?

Is it surprising that those with christ on thier lips fall short in christian practice? Could be to one who has never heard of the war of the Reformation. But to those who understand that war, or know that the great christian on christian war killed more per capita then nazi or commie wars, it is not a surprise. Such a blood letting was needed before the religious holds of vanity and fear could be questioned, before there could be a Reniasance.

All the after life cults, including the christ versions, are fear dominated. This far more characterizes their behavior then any internal dogma. This is the historical record.

So it makes little sense to complain about how this or that cult is steeped in hypocrisy. Faith is the arrogance of assuming superiour unquestionable personal knowledge. It wouldn’t be faith if it could submit to observation or reason. So why complain about silly little things like lies when it is the culpability stems from supreme arrogance. The crime is faith.

Humility starts with “I dont know anything for sure.” and is guided with “I am the same as any one else.” Religions that teach that don’t go blowing people up. But the whole basis of the death cults is make an untestable assertion of final and eternal difference.

Calvin White needs to take a few more steps back and see that the god thing is a mistake made in fear. To beat the god mistake one needs to beat fear not point to irrelevent inconsistancies.

Advertise here.

Arts & Letters

Geonomics is …

a neologism for sharing “rent” or “social surplus” – the money we spend on the nature we use. When we buy land, such as the land beneath a home, we typically pay the wrong person – the homeowner. Instead, since land cost us nothing to make and is the common heri-tage of us all, rather than pay the owner, we should pay ourselves, our neighbors, our community. That is, we should all pay land dues to the public treasury, then our government would pay us land dividends from this collected revenue. It’s similar to the Alaska oil dividend, almost $2,000 last year. Indeed, the annual rental value of land, oil, all other natural resources, including the broadcast spectrum and other government-granted permits such as corporate charters, totals several trillion dollars each year. It’s so much that some could be spent on basic social services, the rest parceled out as a divi-dend, as Tom Paine suggested, and taxes (except any on natural rents) could be abolished, as Thomas Jeffer-son suggested. Were we sharing Earth by sharing her worth, territorial disputes would be fewer, less intense, and more resolvable.

about the money we spend on the nature we use. It flows torrentially yet invisibly, often submerged in the price of housing, food, fuel, and everything else. Flowing from the many to the few, natural rent distorts prices and rewards unjust and unsustainable choices. Redirected via dues and dividends to flow from each to all, “rent” payments would level the playing field and empower neighbors to shrink their workweek and expand their horizons. Modeled on nature’s feedback loops, earlier proposals to redirect rent found favor with Paine, Tolstoy, and Einstein. Wherever tried, to the degree tried, redirecting rent worked. One of today’s versions, the green tax shift, spreads out of Europe. Another, the Property Tax Shift, activists can win at the local level, building a world that works right for everyone.

an answer for Jonathan of the Green Party (Nov 7): “What does ‘share our surplus’ mean?”
Our surplus is the values that society generates synergistically. It’s the money we spend on the nature we use: on land sites, natural resources, EM spectrum, ecosystem services (assimilating pollutants). It’s also the money we pay to holders of government-granted privileges like corporate charters. We could share it by paying for the nature we use and privileges we hold to the public treasury then getting back a fair share of the recovered revenue. Used to be, owners did owe rent (“own” and “owe” used to be one word). And presently, some lucky residents do get back periodic dividends: Alaska’s oil dividend and Aspen Colorado’s housing assistance. Doing that, instead of subsidizing bads while taxing goods, is the essence of geonomics.
Jonathan: “Is local currency what you mean?”Editor: It’s not. Community currency is a good reform, but every good reform pushes up site values. That makes land an even more tempting object of speculation. Now, any good will eventually do bad by widening the income gap – until you share land values.

more transformation than reform; it’s a step ahead. Harvard economics students this year did petition to change the curriculum, in the wake of the English who caught the dissension from across The Channel. French reformers, who fault conventional economics for conjuring mathematical models of little empirical relevance and being closed to critical and reflective thought, reject this “autism” – or detachment from reality – and dub their offering “post-autistic economics”. Not a bad name, but again, academics define themselves by what they’re not, not by what they are, unlike geonomists. We track rent – the money we spend on the nature we use – and watch it pull all the other economic indicators in its wake. We see economies as part of the ecosystem, similarly following natural patterns and able to self-regulate more so than allowed, once we quit distorting prices. To align people and planet, we’d replace taxes and subsidies with recovering and sharing rents.

a scientific look at how we divvy up the work and the wealth, how some of us end up with too much or too little effort or reward. That’s partly due to Ricardo’s Law of Rent, showing how wasteful use of Earth cuts wages. And it’s partly due to how a society’s elite runs government around like water boys, dishing out subsidies and tax breaks. While geonomists look political reality right in the eye, without blinking, conventional economists flinch. When Paul Volcker, ex-chief of the Federal Reserve, moved on to a cushy professorship at Princeton cum book contract, the crush of deadlines bore down. So Volcker asked a junior associate to help with the book. The guy refused, explaining that giving serious consideration to policy would ruin his academic career. The ex-Fed chief couldn’t believe it and asked the department chair if truly that were the case. That head honcho pondered the question then replied no, not if he only does it once. And economics was AKA political economy!

as unfamiliar as geo-economics. The latter is a course some universities offer that combines geography and economics. A UN newsletter, Go Between (57, Apr/May ’96; thanks, Pat Aller), cited an Asian conference on geopolitics and “geoeconomics”. The abbreviated term ‘geonomics” is the name of an institute on Middlebury College campus and of a show on CNBC. Both entities use the neologism to mean “global economics”, in particular world trade. We use geonomics entirely differently, to refer to the money people spend on the nature they use, how letting this flow collect in a few pockets creates class and poverty and assaults upon the environment, and how, on the other hand, sharing this rental flow creates equality, prosperity, and a people/planet harmony. This flow of natural rent, several trillions dollars in the US each year, shapes society and belongs to society.

what you do when you see economies as part of the ecosystem, following feedback loops and storing up energy. Surplus energy – fat or profit – enables us to produce and reproduce. To recycle society’s surplus, the commonwealth, geonomics would replace taxes with land dues (charged to users of sites and resources, in-cluding the EM spectrum, and extra to polluters), and replace subsidies with rent dividends to citizens (a la Alaska’s oil dividend). Without taxes and subsidies to distort them, prices become precise, reflect accurately our costs and values; then, motivated by no more than the bottom line, both producers and consumers make sustainable choices. While no place uses geonomics in its entirety, some places use parts of it, most notably a shift of the property tax off buildings, onto locations. Shifting the property tax drives efficient use of land, in-fills cities, improves the housing stock, makes homes affordable, engenders jobs and investment opportunities, lowers crime, raises civic participation, etc – overall it makes cities more livable. Geonomics – a way to share the bounty of nature and society – is something we can work for locally, globally, and in between.

suitable for framing by Green Parties. When Greens began in Germany two decades ago, they defined themselves as neither left nor right but in front. Geonomics fits that description. The Green Parties have their Four Pillars; geonomists have four ways to apply them:

Ecological Wisdom. Want people to use the eco-system wisely? Charge them Rent and, to end corporate license, add surcharges. To minimize these costs, people will use less Earth.

Nonviolence. Want people to settle disputes nonviolently? Set a good example; don’t levy taxes, which rely on the threat of incarceration, to take people’s money. Try quid pro quo fees and dues.

Social Responsibility. Want people to be responsible for their actions? Don’t make basic choices for them by subsidizing services, addicting them to a caretaker state. Let people spend shares of social surplus.

Grassroots Democracy. Better have grassroots prosperity. Remember, political power follows economic. Pay people a Citizens Dividend; to keep it, they’ll show up at the polls, public hearings, and conventions.

shaped by reality. In the 1980′s, the Swedish government doubled its stock transfer tax. Tax receipts, however, rose only 15%, since traders simply fled to London exchanges. Fearing a further exodus, the Swedish government quickly rescinded the tax altogether. (The New York Times, April 20) That willingness to tax anything leads us astray. Pushing us astray is that unwillingness to pay what we owe: rent for land, our common heritage. Assuming land value is up for grabs, we speculate. We cap the property tax on both land and buildings and the rate at which assessments can go up; while real market values rise quicker, assessments can never catch up. Our stewards, the Bureau of Land Management, routinely sell and lease sites below market value, often to insiders, says the Government Accounting Office. Once we grasp that rent is ours to share, we’ll collect it all, rather than let it enrich a few, and quit taxing earnings, which do belong to the individual earner. That shift is geonomic policy.

a neologism for sharing “rent” or “social surplus” – the money we spend on the nature we use. When we buy land, such as the land beneath a home, we typically pay the wrong person – the homeowner. Instead, since land cost us nothing to make and is the common heritage of us all, rather than pay the owner, we should pay ourselves, our neighbors, our community. That is, we should all pay land dues to the public treasury, then our government would pay us land dividends from this collected revenue. It’s similar to the Alaska oil dividend, almost $2,000 last year. Indeed, the annual rental value of land, oil, all other natural resources, including the broadcast spectrum and other government-granted permits such as corporate charters, totals several trillion dollars each year. It’s so much that some could be spent on basic social services, the rest parceled out as a dividend, as Tom Paine suggested, and taxes (except any on natural rents) could be abolished, as Thomas Jefferson suggested. Were we sharing Earth by sharing her worth, territorial disputes would be fewer, less intense, and more resolvable.